


Sincerity is scary

by luthorial



Category: Atypical (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, just like an insight into casey really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 01:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16075226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luthorial/pseuds/luthorial
Summary: Casey is not autistic like Sam, but she’s not like Evan or Beth or Zahid either.





	Sincerity is scary

**Author's Note:**

> sibling of kids with autism are 2.5 times more likely to have some sort of early onset learning difficulty such as ADHD or autism and are very likely to be higher on the spectrum than a neurotypical person YEET.  
> this was meant to be a casey fic but then it accidentally became a casey/izzie fic only god can judge me for being an inconsistent bitch

Casey is not autistic like Sam.

It’s just sometimes she walks in circles around and around when she’s sad. Like running, but slower. Until she gets so dizzy she can barely stand, her nails teasing the skin on her forearm just below her elbow, soft enough not to draw blood but hard enough to scratch.

Casey is not autistic like Sam, but when he was diagnosed her parents talked in a soft whisper on the drive home. Streetlights illuminated their tired eyes as they looked at both of their children.

Sam was autistic, the doctor had said, and their lives had changed forever.

Keep an eye on her too, the doctor had said.

_Her parents breathed in._

Casey’s not autistic, like Sam.

_Her parents breathed out._

But keep an eye on her.

Casey’s not autistic like Sam, but she shares his blood. She doesn’t like math, but she loves to count. She counts whilst she brushes her teeth, her hair. When she’s overtired she screams, (her mother would call it a tantum). Then she goes impossibly still. Like an iceberg, Sam would say, but it feels more like she’s sinking.

She has a phobia of peeling lids off yoghurts. Not that she can explain it when people ask, but it’s lumped right in with her phobia of badly made t-shirts and tablecloths. Something to do with dirt, things being out of place, like plasters on the bottom of swimming pools. It makes her itch.

She can drive, but not anywhere new. At least not without someone she trusts. She loses the car keys and panics; ends up walking around the empty house repeating ‘ _where did I put them’_ over and over and over. She becomes a hushed broken record that no one can hear, checking the same places again and again and again before curling up on her bed until her dad comes home and finds them for her.

She feels silly after that.

She counts when she runs. _1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4._ Her feet match the rhythm and she thinks that maybe running, for her, is what penguins are for Sam. He knows the average amount of years a Gentoo penguin lives to and she knows exactly how many steps it takes for her to win a race.

Casey is not autistic like Sam, but she’s not like Evan or Beth or Zahid either.

She’s not even like Izzie.

Maybe that’s why it throws her so much when she realises she has feelings for her.

Dating is hard, but Evan is easy. Not in the sense that he’s easy to get into bed, though Casey is sure that he is, at least with her. He’s easy like running. He fits the beat. He matches the sweet ‘boy next door’ boyfriend that Casey reads about in books, watches on her pixelated Tv screen as Sam constantly digs his elbow into her ribs to get her to move to the other end of the couch.

Evan is easy like running; Casey’s done the training _and_ read the manuals. She wouldn’t know how to react if she hadn’t seen it done a hundred times before. She’s watched teen dramas, and he’s the heartthrob: handsome and always there with the right thing to say, (or do).

Evan is easy.

Maybe that’s why Casey likes him so much.

Enough to even call it love.

That’s why she doesn’t want to compare.

But, (and there’s always a but), whilst Evan is like running, Izzie is like winning. Casey runs for fun but when she runs races it’s cut with competition. The feeling of the game leaks into her counting. She finds victory addictive. It’s a taste that never quite washes out her mouth.

Izzie chases her. Or she chases Izzie. She can never quite work it out. They tire each other out in circles, both physically and emotionally. And the circles that Casey runs in with Izzie feel an awful lot like the circles she runs herself around and round in when she doesn’t know how to feel.

But it’s still different.

Because Izzie makes her hold on that one second longer. She makes Casey push her aching legs harder to achieve a one second improvement on her personal best. Whilst Evan supported her, Izzie improved her.

It’s not anyone’s fault, Casey just likes the idea of being challenged.                                                                  

Izzie certainly is a challenge.

That’s how she started in the first place anyway. Sticking into Casey’s side like an unwanted thorn, like a yoghurt lid stuck to the lid of a bin.

Well maybe prettier than that, but still unwanted.

Well maybe unwanted is too strong a word.

Because Casey _wants_ her. She wants her.

Izzie smiles and her freckles seem to glow. When they’re in the car, Izzie’s hands seem to glow too.

“Do you need to eat?” Izzie breaks the silence, eventually. Casey feels faint, her heart pumping twice as often in her chest. Their hands are still joined.

Casey swallows. “Everyone needs to eat.” It’s a jump to the defence: sarcasm. Her dad always jokes that Casey has all of Sam’s sarcasm as well as her own.

Nervously, Izzie laughs. “Shut up Newton, I mean are you hungry?” They’re still not looking at each other.

“I-” Casey pulls her hand away and Izzie tenses, curls her hand into a ball and tucks it inside her coat pocket like a secret. Turning in her seat, Casey faces Izzie. She takes a breath, “I need to break up with him.”

“Okay.” Izzie says. She doesn’t say anything else after that.

They sit in silence for a couple of minutes. The cold slurpee cup drips condensation against Casey’s jeans. She shifts in her seat, stuck in a limbo between staying and going. She stays. “Hey Iz?”

“Yeah?” Izzie waits.

“Can I uh-” Casey shakes her head trying to rid the blush she can feel creeping up her neck, “Can I have your hand back?”

Izzie laughs, her eyes shining, “I am so going to make fun of you for that later.” She says, before quietly adding on, “But yes,” pulling her hand out her pocket, this time not slow but sure, and waiting for Casey to hold it, “Of course you can.”

Casey is not autistic like Sam. She doesn't mind soft touches or hugs goodbye. She isn't like Sam, but she wants his courage, and she wishes she could give him his sarcasm back. She doesn't like putting her hand in chip bags but she loves pizza and running and... well, Sam. And Izzie now too.

 

 

 


End file.
